Chuck Sweeny: Little mention of pension reform in Pat Quinn's speech

Wednesday

Feb 6, 2013 at 12:01 AMFeb 6, 2013 at 5:23 AM

Illinois has an unfunded pension liability approaching $100 billion. Its bond rating is ever-sinking, and it has billions in unpaid bills. But you’d hardly know we live in “Deadbeat Illinois” from listening to Gov. Pat Quinn’s State of The State speech.

Chuck Sweeny

Illinois has an unfunded pension liability approaching $100 billion. Its bond rating is ever-sinking, and it has billions in unpaid bills. But you’d hardly know we live in “Deadbeat Illinois” from listening to Gov. Pat Quinn’s State of The State speech.

True, he did start out today’s address to lawmakers in the House chamber by saying the state “is at a critical juncture.” He then spent the next 45 minutes of the 50-minute speech extolling his accomplishments and calling for new laws that will help unite and excite a left-liberal coalition to propel him toward re-election in 2014.

Quinn did not say whether he will let the 67 percent income tax increase expire on schedule in 2014, or call for its extension. The tax increase raised $7.5 billion last year but most of it went to pay pensions, not to pay $9 billion in old bills, according to state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford.

Only in the last five minutes of his speech did the governor talk seriously about pension reform. He urged passage of Senate President John Cullerton’s Senate Bill One, “a comprehensive bill that stabilizes our pension systems and fixes the problem.”

Other than the last five minutes, it was a bright, bright sunshiny and
progressive day at the Capitol.

Some things on Quinn’s “to-do” list:

He wants to increase efforts to train people for available jobs in manufacturing because, “Today, there are 140,000 job openings that are unfilled because the people looking for jobs don’t have the necessary skills.”
He wants to “increase access to health coverage for the uninsured through Medicaid and to create the Illinois Health Care Insurance Exchange.”
Quinn wants to ban semi-automatic rifles called assault weapons, limit the size of magazines — he didn’t say how many bullets — require all schools to have public safety drills. He admonished counties to report mental health records to the State Police.
Perhaps mindful of the fact that Illinois is required by a federal court order to pass a concealed carry bill by May 30, Quinn said, “We must ensure that guns are kept out of public places, because guns don’t belong in our schools, shopping malls or sports stadiums.”
He wants stronger background checks and would require “gun owners to report stolen or lost guns.”
Quinn called for legislative action to expand the definition of marriage to gay couples. Illinois now has civil unions, and 5,200 couples in 94 counties have taken advantage of that, the governor said.
He advocated online voter registration and open primaries, which brought a response of complete silence from lawmakers. Quinn also wants to ban legislators from voting on issues in which they have a conflict of interest.
The governor wants to raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour in the next four years.

Asked for comment, Syverson said he was bothered by Quinn’s call for a minimum wage increase.

“We are surrounded by states with lower minimum wages. I’d hoped he would support measures to make Illinois more competitive for businesses,” Syverson said. But the veteran lawmaker agreed with Quinn that Cullerton’s pension reform bill is a good one.

“It won’t solve everything, but it does make some painful decisions that will stabilize pensions for many years. Cullerton’s bill has the same language that we passed last year that affected legislators and state employees. This bill expands it to include teachers and local government employees. You have a choice of health care plans and cost of living adjustments, and increased contributions.”

State Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Rockford, was picked to be among
lawmakers escorting the governor into the House chamber. It was an odd experience, the former TV reporter and anchor said: “I was used to being in the balcony, covering the speech.”

Although Stadelman agreed with Quinn that legislators have tough decisions to make on the budget and pensions, he was disappointed that the governor made no mention of gaming legislation.

“I was kind of hoping we’d get an indication of where we’re going on casinos,” said Stadelman, a supporter of a casino for Rockford.

“I was happy to hear the governor mention closing the skills gap. We need to create next generation jobs and make sure we have workers to fill those jobs.”